Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Winter 2009 WPBT Trip Report

The report is late, and will be a bit short, but here we go. I rolled into town around 8 PM Friday night, and hit the MGM poker room by around 9 PM. I found the infamous blogger heavyweight game which had a list a mile long. I watched them go nutzo playing 1/2 NL for a while, and talked to a few bloggers while waiting on the list. I was eventually called to a 1/2 NL table near by that was a lot of fun. I was catching cards like mad, and sweeping pots. A few hours later, I had downed about 8 Blue moons, and was up a nice $150 for the session. I moved over to the Blogger HORSE table for a while, but could not get anything going, so just before 2 AM I decided to shut things down. Just for fun, I decided to check out the Aria hotel in city center that I thought was opening that weekend. I wandered into a completely empty casino, except for some construction workers here and there. I gave myself a tour of the unopened Aria casino, and nobody seemed to care.

Saturday morning, I slept in till about noon, and got myself to Caesars just in time for the Blogger Tournament, but not in time to get anything to eat/drink yet for the day. So instead of pounding drinks right away, I laid low awaiting a break to grab some lunch. I had a great starting table that featured over my stay Iggy, Bayne, Pauly, Garth, Smokkee, Astin, April, and others. I had a tough time early on, gifting Bayne a few chips, but making a good fold. A couple breaks in I was still around the starting stack of $7,500 and in push or fold mode. I was executing the push or fold like a champ for a while eventually doubling through on a 40/60 all-in preflop hand. I would then get it all-in preflop with 99 against 55 for about a 30k pot (1.5x average stack), but you guys can guess what happened. I regrouped for a Saturday night session at MGM. Saturday night, I was off on my own table and winning nicely again. I caught AA and got into a 3-way All-in pre flop hand. I would catch AA again and win another nice pot. I noticed PokerPeaker, and Dr. Chaco's wife at an adjacent table, and decided to make a move off of a pretty fishy table. I had to rathole a bunch of chips to get down to $200. I stopped catching cards at the new table, but it was great to catch up with peaker, and the the others at the table were super talkative and friendly. I was going nowhere in chips though until I caught AKs around 2AM. This was a tough hand, and I probably screwed it up, but what are you going to do at 1/2 NL. So I raise it up to $10 from EP with AKs and get two callers. Flop drops 442 with two of my suit. Pretty much a jackpot flop at 1/2 NL with 15 outs. I open up to $15, get reraised to $30 by a semi-shorty, and then get popped again to $85. WTF! I tank, and really want to fold here, but it is tough. The $30 reraise does not bother me because I have odds to catch against him. The $85 re-reraise seems way out of line for a set, and it is not a good board for a set. Naked 4 out there after a $10 open? The $85 re-reraise just screams of an overpair. 99-AA probably. AA or KK don't look likely because no preflop re-raise. So all 15 outs still look good. I do the math, and I don't need much in implied odds for even the one card draw. I make the call, other guy folds. Turn is a blank. I check, and my opponent shoves all-in. I tank again. Pot-odds are good if I have 12 outs. So as long as this is not AA I am cool with a call here. I eventually make the call, and lose to 22 (a flopped boat). The $85 re-reraise preflop through me completely off. I personally think that was a bad play, because with anything less I would have folded and not paid the boat another penny, but it worked this time. In how many ways did I screw this hand up? It was around 2:30 AM so I packed things up, down about $75 for the night.

Sunday morning, I took care of some FantasySportsLive.com business, and headed over to the blogger football party. The room they had reserved was sick, with a pool table, leather couches, and a bunch of flat screen TVs. One was bigger than anything I have ever seen before (80+ inches?). I did not have any bets on the early games, but took San Diego +3 (+110) for $80, after Joe Speaker showed me his $100 moneyline bet on the same game. I booked it online with bodog. Around 3PM, I packed up and headed home. Never played any -EV games the whole trip, but won some decent cash playing NL holdem, and another $88 when the San Diego pick came in. As usual it was quite a blast, but too short for my liking.